September 26, 2010

September 26/ On being touched

Today my heart was touched. I am taking an ecourse on blogging. Through this class I have gained a lot information, tools, and techniques. Some of it is technical and some inspirational. One part that is very important in the class is the forum. There we ask questions and answers in the open and privately. And we comment directly on others blogs. I have spent a lot of this week reading blogs, stories, and comments. This week everyone was to try something with a different emphasis. I worked on my Dear Radish column.

Last night I went to bed and I was a little down. I wrote quite a few comments on others blogs. Commenting is one way for people to get to know you, and build community. One blog I even brought myself to give some criticism. But at night I thought to myself, really, where are my comments? Where is my feed back? Never mind that only the day before I had said to myself, what do I care how many readers I have, or how many comments, if I can help, delight, provide beauty to someone through the day, that is enough. You never know whom you will touch.

This morning I got up, and because I need to bring myself back to clarity, I opened the computer and went to the forum. There I had two private messages. I laugh because I think they were two people from Australia who were still up. In any case, the first one was from the woman I had given the criticism. She was profoundly grateful. She said that she would take care of the problem as soon as she got her computer out of the shop.

The other commenter said she had read my story of my life in the forum, and how she was glad that I had shared it. She liked my humor on the blog. She said she loved that I was continuing to expand my life. She said that I was a “shining example” of not retiring from life. Tears dribbled out of my eyes.

The moral of this story is: I love comments. No, No. The moral of this story is that you do not know whose heart you will touch. My heart got touched. Somehow she got touched. But, if you do not reach out, no one will be touched.

Comments

I love your blogs, Miss Sally...and I am remiss in commenting very often. I do it in my head often enough and forget to share it with you! I like that your postings go on FB, because if not in front of me, I forget to go to your blogsite. Out of sight, out of mind, sigh. Maybe just out of my mind?

Hello Sally,
I am taking BWY too. I was just thinking today how much I appreciate people leaving me a comment when they drop by, and I try to do the same when I visit a blog that has something that has 'touched' me, whether that be an image, sentence or entire post. You kindly dropped by my blog the other day and I have not had the time yet to thank you in a reply, but after I saw this post, I thought I would like to do it here. Leaving a small word of encouragement about my blog was appreciated, especially since like you, I am new to this.

I have stopped by before and I like how your space here is evolving and you can tell you are becoming much more comfortable with it. I think there is a lot more to come from this 'radish' and it will be a pleasure to follow this journey.

Another BYWer here. You kindly left a comment on my blog last Friday, which I'm only now replying because I'm making an effort to follow Holly's example by staying off the computer over the weekend. That said, I felt guilty for taking so long to visit the blogs of all my lovely visitors who took the time to leave a comment last Friday.

I really admire how you've been blogging for so long, perhaps without hundreds of thousands of readers, but obviously you were fulfilled to have continued for five years. There is a lot to be said for doing what makes you happy regardless of outside influences.

I wanted to thank you for commenting at my blog recently. It always means so much to me when someone takes the time to leave their thoughts. I've been blogging a long time at lots of different blogs scattered around the internet and have never been able to really build myself a community of blogging friends. I think it's because I don't comment enough myself. I read tons of blogs regularly but only comment on a very few because I'm too critical of myself and too shy. Thanks for reminding me with this post that everyone loves to get comments & I should put myself out there a bit more.

Touch is powerful and a beautiful thing. Touch definitely doesn't have to be physical to be healing. Touch comes in many forms especially menta & emotional touch. I find your topics curious as they are so varied and thoughtful. I enjoy them Sally!